[Stanford] The archetypal man you don't want to see about a problem,
esp. an incompetent professional; a shyster. “Do you know a good
eye doctor?” “Sure, try Mbogo Eye Care and Professional Dry
Cleaning.” The name comes from synergy between
bogus and the original Dr. Mbogo, a witch doctor who
was Gomez Addams' physician on the old Addams Family
TV show. Interestingly enough, it turns out that under the rules for
Swahili noun classes, ‘m-’ is the characteristic prefix of
“nouns referring to human beings”. As such,
“mbogo” is quite plausible as a Swahili coinage for a person
having the nature of a bogon. Actually,
“mbogo” is indeed a Ki-Swahili word referring to the African
Cape Buffalo, syncerus caffer. It is one of
the “big five” dangerous African game animals, and many people
with bush experience believe it to be the most dangerous of them. Compare
Bloggs Family and
J. Random Hacker; see also Fred Foobar and
fred.